Sun Microsystems

In 1983, Schmidt joined Sun Microsystems as its first software manager.[9] He rose to become director of software engineering, vice president and general manager of the software products division, vice president of the general systems group, and president of Sun Technology Enterprises.[21]

During his time at Sun, he was the target of two notable April Fool's Day pranks.[22][23][24] In the first, his office was taken apart and rebuilt on a platform in the middle of a pond, complete with a working phone. The next year, a working Volkswagen Beetle was taken apart and re-assembled in his office.

In March 2001, Schmidt joined Google's board of directors as chairman, and became the company's CEO in August 2001. At Google, Schmidt shared responsibility for Google's daily operations with founders Page and Brin. Prior to the Google initial public offering, Schmidt had responsibilities typically assigned to the CEO of a public company and focused on the management of the vice presidents and the sales organization.[26] According to Google, Schmidt's job responsibilities included "building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and on ensuring that quality remains high while the product development cycle times are kept to a minimum."[27]

Upon being hired at Google, Eric Schmidt was paid a salary of $250,000 and an annual performance bonus. He was granted 14,331,703 shares of Class B common stock at $0.30 per share and 426,892 shares of Series C preferred stock at purchase price of $2.34.[28]

In 2004, Schmidt and the Google founders agreed to a base salary of US $1 (which continued through 2010) with other compensation of $557,465 in 2006,[29] $508,763 in 2008, and $243,661 in 2009. He did not receive any additional stock or options in 2009 or 2010.[30][31] Most of his compensation was for "personal security" and charters of private aircraft.[31]

In 2007, PC World ranked Schmidt as the first on its list of the 50 most important people on the Web, along with Google co-founders Page and Brin.[32]

Schmidt is one of a few people[who?] who became billionaires (in United States dollars) based on stock options received as employees in corporations of which they were neither the founders nor relatives of the founders.[33][not in citation given]

In its 2011 'World's Billionaires' list, Forbes ranked Schmidt as the 136th-richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $7 billion.[4] Google gave him a $100 million equity award in 2011 when he stepped down as CEO.[34]

On 20 January 2011, Google announced that Schmidt would step down as the CEO of Google but continue as the executive chairman of the company and act as an adviser to co-founders Page and Brin.

Schmidt has proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the domestic problems of the United States at once is by a stimulus program that rewards renewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.[48]

The Schmidts, working with Heart Howerton, a San Francisco architectural firm that specializes in large-scale land use, have inaugurated several projects on the island of Nantucket that seek to sustain the unique character of the island and to minimize the impact of seasonal visitation on the island's core community.

Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund

In 2009, Eric and Wendy Schmidt endowed the Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund at Princeton University with $25 million. The Fund’s purpose is to support cutting edge research and technology in the natural sciences and engineering, encouraging collaboration across disciplines.[52][53][54][55] It awarded $1.2 million in grants in 2010 and $1.7 million in grants in 2012.[56][57]

Public positions

Contrived and Aggressive Tax Avoidance

Schmidt has claimed that Google's use of highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in Corporation tax owed by its UK operations[58] is "capitalism"[59] and that he was "very proud of it".[60]

On 16 May 2013 Margaret Hodge MP, the chair of the United KingdomPublic Accounts Committee accused Google of being "calculated and unethical" over its use of highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in Corporation tax owed by its UK operations.[61] Google was accused by the committee, which represents the interests of all UK taxpayers, of being "evil" for not paying its "fair amount of tax".[62]

In 2015, the UK Government introduced a new law intended to penalise Google and other large multinational corporations' artificial tax avoidance.[63] Google is accused of avoiding paying tens of billions of dollars of tax through a convoluted scheme of inter-company licensing agreements and transfers to tax havens.[64] Schmidt was also criticised for his inaccurate use of the term 'capitalism' to describe billions of dollars being transferred into tax havens where no economic activity was actually taking place.[65]

Privacy

Publicly Schmidt stated that, as paraphrased by CNN/Money, "there has to be a trade-off between privacy concerns and functionality."[66] His explanations referenced "Don't Be Evil".[66]

During an interview aired on December 3, 2009, on the CNBC documentary "Inside the Mind of Google," Schmidt was asked, "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?" He replied: "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that information could be made available to the authorities."[67][68]

At the Techonomy conference on August 4, 2010, Schmidt expressed that technology is good. And he said that the only way to manage the challenges is "much greater transparency and no anonymity." Schmidt also stated that in an era of asymmetric threats, "true anonymity is too dangerous."[69] However, at the 2013 Hay Festival, Schmidt expressed concern that sharing of personal information was too rampant and could have a negative effect, particularly on teenagers, stating that "we have never had a generation with a full photographic, digital record of what they did", declaring that "We have a point at which we [Google] forget information we know about you because it is the right thing to do. There are situations in life that it's better that they don't exist."[70]

In 2013 Schmidt stated that the government surveillance in the United States was the "nature of our society" and that he was not going to "pass judgment on that".[71] However, on the revelation that the NSA has been secretly spying on Google's data centers worldwide, he called the practice "outrageous" and criticized the NSA's collection of Americans phone records[72]

In 2005 Google blacklisted CNET reporters from talking to Google employees for one year, until July 2006, after CNET published personal information on Schmidt, including his political donations, hobbies, salary, and neighborhood, that had been obtained through Google searches.[66]

Network neutrality

In August 2010, Schmidt clarified his company's views on network neutrality: "I want to be clear what we mean by Net neutrality: What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. But it's okay to discriminate across different types. So you could prioritize voice over video. And there is general agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue."[73]

Influence of Internet usage in North Korea

In January 2013, Schmidt and Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas visited North Korea along with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.[74] The trip was highly publicized and controversial due to the ongoing tension between North Korea and the United States.[75]Tumblr, a Yahoo!-owned social-blogging site, featured a page titled, "Eric Schmidt looking at things", and included photographs of Mr. Schmidt looking intently at computer screens and other scenes in North Korea.[76] On August 10, 2013, North Korea announced an indigenous smartphone, named Arirang, that may be using the Google Android operating system.[77]

Advocating open Internet use in Burma

In March 2013, Schmidt visited Burma, which had been ruled by a military junta for decades and is transitioning to a democracy. During his visit, Schmidt spoke in favor of free and open Internet use in the country, and was scheduled to meet with the country’s president.[78][79][80]

Publications

The New Digital Age

In 2013, Schmidt and Jared Cohen, director of the Google Ideas think tank, published The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, which discusses the geopolitical implications of increasingly widespread Internet use and access to information. The book was inspired by an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine the two co-wrote in 2010.[81][82][83] He also wrote the preface to The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs, by William H. Draper, III.[84]

How Google Works

In 2014, Schmidt co-authored the New York Times best-selling book How Google Works[85] with Jonathan Rosenberg, former Senior Vice President of Products at Google and current advisor to Google CEO Larry Page, and Alan Eagle.[86] The book is a collection of the business management lessons learned over the course of Schmidt and Rosenberg's time leading Google.[87] In his book, Eric Schmidt argues that successful companies in the technology-driven internet age, should attract smart and creative employees and then create an environment where they can thrive. He argues that the traditional business rules that make a company successful have changed. The book states that companies should maximize freedom and speed, and decision-making should not lie in the hands of the few. It also emphasizes that individuals and small teams can have a massive impact on innovation.[88]

Schmidts Law

Dating back to early 1990s and dubbed "Schmidts Law" by George Gilder when Schmidt predicted that the network will become the computer.[89][90]

Schmidts Law states: "When the network becomes as fast as the backplane of your computer, the computer hollows out, its components dispersing across the Web, its value migrating to search and sort functions." [91]

Other work

Art Collection

Schmidt was on the list of ARTnews's 200 top art collectors in 2008.[92]

↑"CEO Eric Eric Schmidt stood out because he 'was the only candidate who had been to Burning Man.'" From "Markoff and Zachary on Google"; quoted are John Markoff and Gregg Zachary. See also Business Week's "Eric Eric Schmidt, Google" from September 29, 2003: "One of the first orders of business was joining his new 20-something colleagues at Burning Man, a free-form festival of artistic self-expression held in a Nevada desert lake bed. Sitting in his office shortly after his return, tanned and slightly weary, Eric Schmidt couldn't have been happier. "They're keeping me young," he declared."

↑"Earlier this year, he pulled in almost US$90 million from sales of Google stock and made at least another US$50 million selling shares in the past two months as the stock leaped to more than US$300 a share." Mills, Elinor (August 3, 2005). "Google balances privacy, reach". CNET. Archived from the original on 2005. Retrieved November 15, 2006.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>

↑ 66.066.166.2Westhoven, Jennifer. "CNET: We've been blackballed by Google." (Archive) CNNMoney. August 5, 2005. Retrieved on September 16, 2013. "Schmidt is officially Google's chief champion and defender, and has publicly said that there has to be a trade-off between privacy concerns and functionality. He has brought up Google's corporate motto, "Don't Be Evil" in those defenses. "

↑"Google Execs Say 'The Power Of Information Is Underrated'". All Tech Considered. NPR. April 23, 2013. Retrieved August 19, 2013. Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen recently returned from a highly publicized trip to North Korea. They discuss the role of the Internet in more repressive countries.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>

↑Youkyung Lee (August 16, 2013). "Skepticism as NKorea shows home-grown smartphone". AP Newswire. Stars & Stripes. Retrieved August 19, 2013. The Korean Central News Agency's Aug. 10 report said the factory began manufacturing smartphones 'a few days ago' ... Kim Mun-gu, a manager at a South Korean mobile phone company, said the Arirang smartphone appears to be using the Android operating system. He said the photos aren't convincing as proof the North is manufacturing the phones<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>